|
|
| www.1001TopWords.com |
|
|
Arson Watch Program Agency Interaction
This years fire season has already started and so far the score is showing the fire fighters in the lead with several large fires under their belts in California, Nevada and Arizona. So far in 2005 we have not had any huge or "Mega Fires" yet, cross your fingers that our luck continues. If you are worried about your community after the very wet season of Winter 2005 and the tremendous growth you may want to consider starting an Arson Watch Program. If you decide to go for it and set up a team of volunteers to watch out for arson there are a few things you should know about. I have written a free online 21-page E-Book, which you are welcome to read if you are thinking of starting such a group. It is available: http://www.lancewinslow.org/arsonwatch.pdf The most important thing when setting up a community arson watch program is to involve the local agencies such as the fire department, police and any nearby Federal Agencies for instance the USDA Forest Service and/or BLM; bureau of land management. Here are some quick pointers to assist you. FIRE DEPARTMENTS The Local Fire department will provide a Community Relations person to explain to participants the need to report arsonists and simple things you can do to minimize the potential exponential and aggressive natures of small containable fires until the fire department arrives with the proper tools to fight the fire. They will explain how to set up roadblocks and secure easy access for fire vehicles to arrive. When to get out of there and which direction to go. They will also explain what the reality of your limits are based on the type of equipment in your vehicle. USDA FORESTRY SERVICE The USDAFS will explain what is being done, why the importance, water tables, this years potential exposure. They will provide handouts and safety tips and what to do, where to go and where to tune in; Prevention, communication and nature. Every year the USDAFS does extensive research in prevention and data collection. This is information everyone should know who lives near forested areas, parks and mountainous area. The can provide the education that may help save the lives of you and your family. POLICE DEPARTMENT The Police department will provide a Community Relations person to explain to participants the need to report crimes and what is actually a crime. Arson is a crime, one of the worst possible crimes. The police can explain how to detect suspicious behavior from a potential arsonist. They will explain that if someone cuts you off on the Highway it is an unfortunate situation but not a crime and to limit phone calls to important things. Most importantly, they will explain that the participants are the eyes and ears of the Police, not vigilantes. The Police will also ask participants to have the police departments phone number programmed into their cellular phones and to only use the 911 feature only for accidents involving arson activity, accident injuries and very serious things. The Police department will also give the certificates to participants once they have completed the seminar, which will be signed by police chief or local Community Relations Officer. CITY HALL City Council members will very likely endorse the project at a city council meeting and give a proclamation to the President of The Chamber of Commerce for the Chambers and local businesses service to community. Most cities or towns can allot at least $2,500.00 towards the project for the signage. Donations for the remained can often be obtained large companies in the area. By announcing it at a city council meeting the program will receive the publicity it needs to get quality participants. Please think on these things and see what you decide. You may find setting up a Community Arson Watch Program to be a lot easier than you think and rather than living in fear of the "Big One" fire you can be proactive and prevent it instead. "Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
How to Keep Your Postal Mail Private and Secure Surreptious opening of most envelopes sent through the mail takeslittle effort and only minimal skill. Instructions are readily available on the Internet and in books suc as "CIA Flaps and Seals Manual"(Paladin Press). Surveillance Camera Positioning It is a known fact that advertising is made to attract our eyes. Marketers work very hard to plant visual memories in your mind. They use anomaly phrases, rhetorical questions, sexy images and ironic text. There are many reasons why this is done but the biggest reason is that it works. Our eyes are often caught and our brains captured for a moment while we digest the advertisement. Since the advertising world has done such a good job in making us look and think there is a slight hesitation in our gaze and direction of sight. This of course is the world's best time to snap a shot or grab an image of a human on a surveillance camera. Life Insurance - Wise Investment to Protect Your Home or Excessive Caution? Life insurance is typically taken out to offer valuable financial protection for your family in the event of your death, upon which a payment is made to your financial beneficiaries, heirs or family members. The extent of this payment will depend on your insured sum and earnings. Life insurance and life assurance may be interlinked in advertisements, though bear in mind the two policies are different. Life assurance is a form of financial protection which is also an investment, as you should always get a pay-out at the end of the term of the policy. Life insurance on the other hand is simply financial protection for your family, avoiding the issue of debt in the event of your death. Home Security: Your Yard is the First Line of Defense You may not believe it but most burglars do not plan their break ins. They are crimes of opportunity. They pick what appears to be a simple target. If they see a greater risk than they anticipated, they move onto a safer target. Therefore the more effort you take to keep your home from seeming to be a simple target, the safer you will be. Alarm System: Contacts (Window & Door Switches) Alarm Contacts- Contact switches are magnetic switches used to protect doors and windows for the most part. There are three main styles that are used by most alarm companies. They are recessed contacts, surface mount contacts and roller-ball contacts. Six Common Criminal Types And How To Avoid Them "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" that saying is as true for crime, as it is for health. After taking literally thousands of reports over the years I spent as a police officer; I found that a lot of crimes that had happened could have been prevented. The easiest and most effective way of dealing with crime is not be a victim of it in the first place. This is easier said then done, and no matter how cautious you are you can still be a victim. Nothing will give you a 100% guarantee; however, there are things you can do to at least limit your odds of being a victim. But first; you have to know what you are preventing yourself from, in order to know how to prevent against it. This article will in general show you some of the common criminal types, and give some suggestions on how to avoid them. I have made up my own classifications for these people based upon my experience as a police officer. Alarm System: Wireless Remotes WIRELESS ALARM SYSTEM REMOTES Organizing an Arson Watch Program A wide variety of participants are needed to launch a successful Neighborhood Arson Mobile Watch program. In this section, necessary participants are listed, along with a description of the kind of support needed from each. As many of you know, implementing a community-based project requires the interest, cooperation, and support from many people. But it all is definitely worthwhile! Emergency - Gas Fire! Woooooooo??Woooo???The siren sounded. All of us looked at each other with excitement. The time has come for us to go into action. Alarm System: Sirens Alarm Sirens- There is both inside and outside sirens. Many towns have a noise ordinance, which should prevent your installer from putting yours outside, unless you are on a ranch where you need to know what's going on while your out in the barn. You would not want a neighbor running over to your place during an alarm as they might be confronting a dangerous situation. It is better to let the police do that instead. Is America Safe? As the devastation and death toll from deadly Hurricane Katrina becomes more apparent, it is a grim reminder that we live in dangerous times. Alarm Systems & Automobile Tires? What do alarm systems and automobile tires have in common? This may sound like a strange question to the untrained ear, but lend me yours and I will make sense of it. Protect Your Family From Solar Flares Protect your family from solar flares. Solar flares emit dangerous gamma radiation, which affects everything from gravity waves to the Earth's tectonic system. These solar flares are dangerous to human life. The Gamma Radiation is dangerous to the human bio system. Many severe solar flares can cause cancer and It heats up the atmosphere and can drastically change weather patterns too. We have had some serious solar flares in the last few years, which have affected our lives. Some say that Earthquakes are in part due to the disruption of the natural electromagnetic distribution of the Earth along with causing disruptions in gravity waves. Hurricane Preparedness If you are about to get hit by a Hurricane are you prepared? Do you have enough plywood to board up your windows? Often the local lumber companies will be sold out. In fact if you wait till the last minute Home Depot will be out too. Do you own a portable generator? No? Get one. Do you have enough fuel to keep it powered up? Most generators can use up to 1.5 gallons per hour and thus you need spare fuel tanks as well? If you wait too long the gas stations will be closed and after the Hurricane the power may not be turned back on for up to two-weeks depending on the damage. If you are talking about a direct hit Category III or IV it is entirely possible that it will be at least that long. Avoiding Pickpockets Every year, thousands of senior citizens fall prey to the quick and clever tactics of pickpockets and thieves. What may take thieves a moment to "lift" from your pockets (passports, credit cards, and airline tickets) may take weeks to replace. It is difficult to recognize these changeling thieves sometimes the well dressed businessman standing next to you who just dropped some coins, at other times the "friendly" group of young children with newspapers approaching you in a city subway. A thief may be hard to recognize, but their time tested tactics are not. When traveling or in your home area you can prevent the majority of common thefts by arming themselves with the knowledge of typical scams, following some basic travel safety tips. How to Use a Fire Extinguisher Millions of people everyday rely on fire extinguishers to put out minor fires which start in the home. Fire extinguishers contain a powder which is known to instantly put out a fire and prevent it from spreading any further. In 2004, fire extinguishers saved over 25 lives in the United States and prevented over 1,500 injuries. Fire departments all over the world encourage home owners to have at least one fire extinguisher in the home at all times. That said, studies show that approximately 80% of homeowners do have at least one in their home, but the question is do they know how to use it? Home Security ? Defend Your Home and Possessions Against Intruders! With all of the emphasis in the past few years on Homeland Security, many people have overlooked the importance of home security. While it might not make the first story on the news, when your house is burgled, safeguarding your home soon becomes the most important issue in your world. Eavesdropping and Counter-Measures: Technology and Techniques You need to know how to protect yourself, since your security department or any consultant may not be truly aware of these threats and therefore not dependable. Since September 11th, a number of businesses entered the security field with little to no knowledge of the trade itself; only of its profit potential. Even outfits that have been around for some time and well-established have not been able to stay current with the latest innovations.Realistically, viewing your threat level has to be considered since everyone should expect some sort of impending privacy issue no matter how small. Thanks largely to the Internet you can arm yourself with much of the knowledge and equipment that the so-called experts use. If a respected agent of computer crimes for the Secret Service in NYC had his T-Mobile Sidekick hacked, who knows what else happens out there to others in any business.Realistically, viewing your threat level has to be considered since everyone should expect some sort of impending privacy issue no matter how small. Thanks largely to the Internet you can arm yourself with much of the knowledge and equipment that the so-called experts use. If a respected agent of computer crimes for the Secret Service in NYC had his T-Mobile Sidekick hacked, who knows what else happens out there to others in any business.We'll start acoustic ducting evaluation is the inspection of air ducts, baseboard heaters, coffee rooms, lounges, bathrooms or any way the architecture of a building can transfer sound. A simple example is to put your ear to a wall and listen. Basically anything that requires the use of the naked ear is called an acoustic bug. Softer surfaces can help muffle sounds but there are more efficient means out there. So be aware that the way an office site is designed can act as a conduit for conversations. Also, be aware of any changes can have adverse affects. Simply playing music can do wonders for masking conversations.Inspection of telephone equipment and wiring is called line analysis. This is trickier than it seems since sometimes a possible weakness has an actual purpose to the telecommunication system. Especially if it requires constant maintenance and software upgrades.All instruments should be opened and inspected. Ideally they should be compared with a known safe phone or device. If you're not sure, just remove that piece of loose components and wiring and see if the phone still works. The wiring can be modified in a switch within the handset that essentially turns it into a microphone. If you bypass this hook switch, you can listen in from anywhere on the landline. Technicalequipment won't be able to detect this. Time Domain Reflectometry is the sending of a pulse down a telephone line. If there is some sort of disruption; a wall outlet or wiretap; a portion of the pulse will besent back to the device called a Time Domain Reflectometer (TDR). Then the time difference between the reflection and the continuous run is measured. This helps in determining the distance to the anomaly.These devices can perform all sorts of diagnostics including mapping a wire network. That can be useful in locating a hidden phone. Hidden phones have several obvious uses such as making long distance phone calls to being placed in an office across the street to receive betting requests by bookies; a practice called back strapping. If you open up the modular jacks where you connect your phone, you'll usually see four wires. In most cases only two wires are connected; commonly known as ring and tip. If you see all four connected, be aware that is not usually consistent for most wiring situations, especially in homes. The other two wires could be used for a bugging device.For instance, the microphone you use in a voice recorder can be cut in half. Connect the mike head to one set of unused wires anywhere on the phone wire. Then, so long as there are no breaks in the wire, connect the other end to the jack that connects to your recorder. Now place your recorder to be VOX (voice) activated and now you have an extremely reliable bug. By the way, this should be manually inspected for since using a specialized bug detector may see nothing wrong or inconsistent. A bug such as this that connects to a wire is called a direct tap. The other general type is called an inductive tap. This is when an instrument is outside a wire but can still distinguish what's transacting over a wire. They are harder to detect since they don't draw power from the line such a standard telephone would. These are referred to as snuffle bugs. A simple probe used in hunting wire signals has a speaker, which can display sounds. Byaccident one day I was working on an apartment intercom system while using a probe. I could hear conversations throughout the building quite clearly just through the intercom boxes mounted on walls from the master unit in the basement.If you're using wireless headsets or cordless phones, the radio signals can be intercepted. A cordless phone acts like a radio, but depending on the frequency and a few other factors, can make interception extremely difficult. With some manufacturers, you can buy the same model as your neighbors or the office and have it join their phone system. Double check Caller ID boxes to see if they also record numbers dialed besides obviously those being received. If you're using VOIP (Voice Over IP), remember that calls can be recorded in a fashion identical to intercepting data between two computers. These packets of data can reassemble an audio file. Obviously electronic devices possess semiconductor components such as diodes, resistors and such. The method to hunt for these components is called Non-Linear Junction Detection (NLJD). The NLJD unit emits a radio signal while listening for the return signal from an electronic device. This becomes very useful when a bug is embedded in a picture frame or wall. The eavesdropping device doesn't have to be active for it to be discovered. If a device is active and transmitting wirelessly (or even on a wire), you can detect it with a Radio Frequency Spectrum Analyzer. Depending on the detection device used, you can determine whether voice, data or video is being sent, and possibly listen to the data. Try to use different size antennas or buy one that collapses. Different frequencies can be detected more efficiently by using various sizes. The use of filters with antennas can also help pinpoint devices on specific frequencies. Electronics such as computers, FAX machines and especially CRT monitors can radiate electromagnetic signals or pulses that can be received by other equipment. This is known TEMPEST. One way to complicate the surveillance of this is to use certain fonts and line walls or equipment with different gauges of copper mesh wire. You can further enhance this posture by using special paints, which block radio transmissions. Radio waves will look for a leak or break, so be careful of defensive applications. One-way window tints can help in blocking signals. Since an electronic device could generate some heat they can be detected in another way. The use of a thermal imagery device can detect and actually see minute amounts of heat radiated for your viewing. You can hide the heat signatures by using creams or neoprene. Technology exists to collect information from blinking LEDs of modems, routers, print servers and similar devices. You can only see some general blinking but with the use of properly tuned optics, filters, oscilloscopes and good timing you can discern much more. One of the LEDs on your keyboard can be altered to blink while you are typing in a fashion similar to Morse Code. You can also use a tap in the keyboard that sends out radio waves again similar to Morse Code and no anti-virus software will ever be able to find it. Even when a CRT computer monitor is facing a wall the light can be in a sense read by its flickering emanations from some distance. A good defensive measure is to buy new LCD flat panel types.Another approach to attacking FAX machines is to simply record the noises it makes and play it back to another machine. I used to do this for a client so they could keep a record of all the faxes they made and received. There are creative and potentially illegal defenses against wiretappers and Peeping Toms. One is to transmit an extremely high pitch down the wire, thereby rupturing the listener's eardrums. I knew someone who once sent a powerful electrical spike down his phone wire thereby destroying his divorced wife's recorder. By the way, this leads to another topic-expect the device to be discovered someday. Don't leave your fingerprints on it. He found it and had it dusted, thereby producing some prints. My friend used this as leverage against the Private Investigator that planted it. Advice to Private Investigators, a word to the wise: if you do this part-time, hire someone who does this full-time. This P.I. lost his license and almost went to jail. The lawyer who recommended him got into a lot of trouble as well. He received some unwanted attention from the Feds because of his telephone dealings went across state lines and also happened to involve the Post Office. There is another budding field related to this topic called Protective Intelligence. Currently there are only a few experts who do this kind of work.A laser or an infrared beam can be used at a considerable distance from a target building. Conversational sounds can vibrate unto solid objects such as windows. The beam's reflection varies in relation to the movement to the window, which is received and converted back into something audible. To mask the sounds, you could attach a vibrating device (basically an altered electric razor) to the window.Of course if the window is open, then a laser can target another object instead of the window. A beam of light or laser can be directed to go through a window onto a solid object thereby nullifying such defensive measures again. Generally you really can't detect such attacks unless the laser, infrared or light beam is being used that moment. Certain materials can be used to detect IR emissions, as well as the use of passive night vision gear. Certain fabrics or even a curtain may actually show the spot where a beam of light or laser is being focused. Unless the room is dusty or you have an artificial can smoke, you can follow the beam up to a point and guesstimate it's location. One type of optical bug is an infrared transmitter. When placed in the area of interest for transmission of the conversation to an infrared receiver which will then translate the conversation into an audible format.Many of these same procedures used can be applied to locating hidden cameras. A relatively new device uses a series of lasers to seek out optics. This wasoriginally intended to locate snipers by bodyguards.I have listed the techniques, counter-measures and then the counter to the counter-measures to prevent any false sense of security. Usually constant vigilance is your best weapon besides knowing what to look for. Even if you find a "bug sweeper" with good credentials, certifications and experience, ask them detailed questions. Not just to test them but also for your own peace-of-mind. This makes our job easier and we appreciate greatly when dealing with knowledgeable customers. Handling Weather Emergencies: Part 1 - Forward Planning Makes The Difference Introduction Who Abducted the Missing Child? What is going on with these people who feel they can walk onto your property or in front of your home and abduct your child? If those parents had installed a hidden camera in their home, the police could use the recordings from the camera and have a quick lead to find the child and return them safely. Being prepared for the unthinkable act of your child being abducted by installing hidden cameras is much better than wishing later you had installed cameras!
|
| © Athifea Distribution LLC - 2013 |